Craniofacial cephalometrics of a sample of patients from Western Cape academic hospitals born with unilateral cleft lip and palate

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate craniofacial measurements of patients diagnosed with unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP), who presented at Tygerberg Academic Hospital, Red Cross Children's Hospital, and the University of the Western Cape Faculty of Dentistry. Materials and Methods: Ethics approval was received from the Biomedical Science Research Ethics Committee of the University of the Western Cape. The inclusion criteria were patients with non-syndromic UCLP prior to the alveolar bone graft. Craniofacial measurements of 53 UCLP patients were analysed using lateral cephalograms from electronic medical records. Both digital and analogue radiographs were included. Dolphin software version 11.95 Premium was used to compare 14 cephalometric angles (skeletal, dentoalveolar, and soft tissue) with existing data. Inter and intra-observer reliability were assessed using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and bootstrap confidence interval (CI).